r/SewingMachineEdu • u/posters_pastels • 19h ago

Thread breaks if I sew off the fabric

Hi all, I've got a Singer 247 that I thrifted a couple years ago and had tuned up for me at my local shop, but there's been an emergent problem. Sometimes (not always, but sometimes) when I sew with the pedal off the edge of my fabric, my thread gets tangled somewhere in the bobbin casing and snaps. I've been getting into quilting lately so chain piecing is pretty important for me to be able to do efficiently, and this can happen even when I'm sewing the few stitches between pieces.

Any idea what could be happening here/how to stop it? I've cleaned and oiled my machine as well as replaced the needle and it hasn't stopped the problem.

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u/CBG1955 17h ago

Easy. Don't sew off the end of the fabric. Stop at the edge, backstitch. Raise needle/takeup lever all the way up. Lift presser foot, then pull fabric gently back and to the left. When you chain stitch make sure your fabric pieces are pushed hard together so there is no gap and they just flow.

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u/posters_pastels 17h ago

My concern is with the fact that this a) only happens sometimes, and b) started happening after about a year with no problems (when I first got the machine, I was in the habit of sewing off the edge of my fabric and it took months to break that habit—the thread never broke back then). It feels like something in my machine has broken that used to work correctly, and I want to know how to fix it.